


And Then She Died

by Swiggity_swydra_fuck_hydra (Haych_Aych_Ach)



Category: Criminal Minds, Daredevil (TV), Punisher (Comics)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Maria-centric, because she deserves at least a backstory, because she deserves to at least be a character, transgender character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 12:45:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7508788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haych_Aych_Ach/pseuds/Swiggity_swydra_fuck_hydra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five looks at five different Maria Castles, before they died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sunshine's parents--all eight of them--are shocked,  _shocked_ they tell her, when she leaves.

She doesn't pay them much attention. She knows all of them, her moms and mamas and dads and the one she jokingly calls Parental Unit Number Six Model 2000, from their dumbest to their greatest, and she knows that whenever anyone doesn't want to live with them forever, they make squawking noises and prophesies of doom and then a few years later go up to visit them and play nice. She's not worried that they'll actually abandon her as they tell her she's ruining her life, signing into the patriarchy, and 'becoming one of the masses'. 

She knows that she wants to leave, and that's that. And for all their naysaying, she does end up leaving the commune-slash-farm-slash-warehouse where she's lived her entire life with several hundred dollars in cash and a couple thousand in her bank account, plenty of food and water, and two extra gas cans next to the survivalist kits in the back of her minivan. Halfway out of the state, she finds her childhood blanket and plush panda bear in a small bag that Mama Starbeam must have left in there when she was helping Sunshine pack her suitcase full of clothes, and the silent gesture takes her breath away.  _Your past belongs to you_.

* * *

 

It's not easy, and being away from them makes all of her doubts suddenly louder. So what that she was adopted as a baby from Korea by Mom Ingrid, who then became a hippie and joined the commune late in life? So what that she's never known who she came from? So what that she's lived her entire life in a weird little place, homeschooled and stifled and bored by the endless circles and the trips to music festivals? They're her  _family_ , and she just up and left. Sunshine feels terrible.

But all the same, once she passes the border and goes up and up the eastern seabord, once she gets into territory where the drivers are shit and the people look perpetually busy, Sunshine relaxes. She books into a fancier hotel for the night and rides the elevator next to a woman angrily talking on her phone in a business suit, and she has the strangest sensation of being at home.

* * *

 

Other things are more difficult to take care of then simply deciding to stay--finding a job, finding an actual  _place_ in which to stay, making friends. Sunshine knows she's easy to talk to, and making acquaintances isn't hard. But going from there to being close to people, being able to share the stories of her parents getting high and tipping their own cows or the time they thought they had raised a puppy from the dead in their circle (it wasn't dead in the first place, just really sleepy) or how Sunshine had fried squirrel instead of chicken one time for July 4th and they had all thought it was a calculated mockery of US imperialism when really, she'd been  _six_ and not known the difference.

It's hard sometimes. She knows these aren't necessarily her people, and the world just feels so  _large_. 

* * *

 

She works for a while at a couple of restaurants, and then one night when a teenager can't pay for his date because she didn't bring her wallet and he left his at home, Sunshine tells him that it's fine, she'll cover it, and the next day his mother comes in and offers her a job at her hair salon (as a receptionist) and to help her get a scholarship for beauty school, so she can work there as an actual hairdresser.

She takes the offer and ends up living out of her car during beauty school to help pay for it, but it's fine. She's slept in cars on long, long road trips before.

* * *

 

It's halfway through her first year of beauty school that Sunshine decides she knows what she wants to do for herself: she wants to change her name. It's hers, and while she knows that her parents will all throw a shitfit about it for years, she doesn't like being called Sunshine any more. It doesn't even sound like a name out here. 

The legal paperwork is hard to find and the process is hard, but eventually Sunshine Moonchild is Maria Castle, and she feels even more confident when it's done. She's  _making it_. She is her own person.

* * *

 

Her beauty school offers discount haircuts from the trainees, and one day Maria gets an incredibly hot guy who comes in, introduces himself as Frank, and says he just wants the buzzcut.

Maria raises an eyebrow, combs through his short hair. Men up here always have short hair. "You sure?" she says. "This is good hair."

"I'm going to be a marine, ma'am," he says, "It's required," and oh no, he sounds the same age as her and he's even hotter when he says  _ma'am_. 

Maria hmms, and then sighs. "Fine," she says, "But I'm giving this a very good wash first, and I'll condition it too."

He laughs softly and says "Yes ma'am" and she's  _gone_.

* * *

 

At the end of the appointment, after he's happy and they've been chatting for so long, he gives her his number, "Just so you can call me back if you'd like, ma'am," and he leaves. Maria watches him go, wanting to grab fistfuls of his ass and press him inside of her while they fuck. He's ridiculously hot, and most of all so because he's so unlike the boys she's fucked before at festivals and co-ops.

* * *

 

At their first date, he pulls out her chair and he tells her upfront that he'd like to pay, if she's alright with that. "I wouldn't feel right otherwise, ma'am," he says, and she adores him. He makes her laugh five times within the next five minutes, and the more she learns about him--that he's going to be a Marine, that he's from New York and wants to live there again between deployments and after he retires, that he has no idea what most of the wines are but likes any beer that's not PBR or Bud--the more she realizes that this is the kind of guy her parents would never, ever approve of.

Well, they didn't approve of her leaving either, and ever since she's gotten a job Maria hasn't regretted  _that_.

"So, I never got your last name," Frank says once Maria's salad comes over. 

"Oh, I'm Maria Castle," she says, and he blinks.

"I'm Frank Castle," he says, and they both laugh at the same time.

"Why--we're not cousins, are we?" He asks, still laughing, and Maria shakes her head. 

"No, I changed my name a while back, it must be just a coincidence," she says, smiling at him. He's  _gorgeous_ when he laughs, the broken nose making it even better, more real somehow.

"What did you change it from?" he asks her, and she pauses before telling him the truth, which makes his nose scrunch up like he's confused.

"Why'd they name you that? You don't look like a Sunshine."

Maria shrugs. "Mama--Mama Ingrid, I mean--told me that it was after that song, the one that goes  _you are my sunshine, my only sunshine_..."

Frank frowns. "That's creepy."

Maria looks at him, and plays with the straw in her drink. "Yeah," she says after a few minutes. "It is, isn't it?"

* * *

 

He seems to be just as into her, a little awkward around most people, quiet and watchful and intelligent, and she likes it. She likes him more the more she knows him, sees how he opens up to her in a way that he just doesn't to anyone else. He tells her about his favorite poetry, about New York City, about how he hasn't spoken to his parents since he was sixteen.

He listens to her in return, laughs at her stories, surprises her after work with flowers and food when he can. A lot of the time, the most they can manage are letters and phone calls, but whenever he has time off, he seems to split it by spending two-thirds of it with her and one-third by himself. Maria likes him, likes how he's not clingy, how when he's walking with her the comments on her hair and her ass disappear. She likes how he both very clearly doesn't understand her family at all and doesn't disrespect them or her. He doesn't forget their names, keeps the stories straight, and never elapses into the monstrous figures of Maria's childhood bedtime stories about how men from the outside--men who weren't part of the  _cause_ \--were like werewolves, liable to tear you apart at the smallest opportunity.

He's safe. He's warm, and kind, and smart, and has a wickedly dark sense of humor, and he is not what she's been told to want but he--but Frank is--to put it simply--the one _does_ want. So when he comes to her after having passed all the training and advanced up a little bit, getting two weeks of downtime before even more specialized training, she asks him out to dinner at the same Italian place they first went to together. She wears a nice dress and makes sure her hair--pink this month, dark pink flushing into purple and curling down her back in tight ringlets--is perfect. 

They sit down together, and Maria orders the wine for them (they've learned that that's best--Frank will swallow down the nastiest vinegary wine if it's the cheapest on the menu), and then as they're both waiting for the appetizers, Maria and Frank say at the same time, "Frank, there's something--"

"Maria, there's something--"

They stop, blinking. Maria looks at him, at how he's inexplicably wearing an actual  _suit_ , at how he seems weirdly nervous, and she bursts out laughing. When she's done, she sees Frank is smiling at her, and she leans back.

"Let's do it together," she says, and reaches for his hand. He gives it to her, and they say as one, "Frank--"

"Maria--"

"Will you marry me?"

And then they both smile and say  _yes_ , and Maria has never felt calmer and stronger in her entire life.


	2. Chapter 2

They're on the plane to go, and Maria is looking at the case file as Hotch is going over it. The sixth woman in a month, college-aged, all second-generation immigrants, all mixed-race. Each of them had been bound, drugged, starved, and systematically electrocuted and waterboarded for at least three days before being mutilated and dumped in their dorms. 

She's only half-listening to the wunderkid--Reid, he's called--talk about statistical probabilities and Rossi mention the criminal sophistication, and Maria blinks as he realizes that this is the last case she's ever working. She's done. Maybe she can transfer to white-collar crime in New York or something, because this is just too much. It's dragging on her. She feels even worse than she did when she was just interviewing serial killers in prison; she can't do this anymore.

But then she pulls herself together and joins in, mentioning how he's criminally but not forensically sophisticated--plenty of DNA left behind, but the abductions are all smooth and the dumping of the bodies indicates that he's very good at getting into and out of locked, crowded buildings unseen. She agrees with Prentiss that the shortening cooling-off period is worrying, and with Morgan that the degree of torture indicates possible military black ops training. 

* * *

 

It's when they're interviewing a possible suspect that she meets him.

He fits some parts of the profile--young male, white, has military training consistent with being familiar with the torture, mostly a loner, no parents or children, never been arrested before, nobody to back up his alibi of being out taking a walk during the estimated abductions and murders, inherited a house with a basement, familiar with New York--but when she sits down across from him, there's something in his gaze that tells her that it's not him. Right now, Chichida Harind is eighteen and missing and there's not a lot of time left.

Maria's been a forensic psychologist for five years, and worked with the FBI as a field agent for three. She's sat down across from an awful lot of killers, and they're all the same. She knows what she is: attractive, young, ethnically ambiguous but light-skinned and red-haired and freckled enough that sometimes they don't see that. 

This guy--Frank Castle, Garcia's told them--looks at her like she's a person.

"Hello," she says. "I'm Special Agent Maria Areida with the FBI. Are you familiar with the recent murders taking place at Pratt University?" she asks him.

"No, ma'am," he says. Genuine respect. That's different. 

"So far, it's six women who've turned up dead," she says, and puts down the crime scene photos, watching his face. It's a rapidfire sequence: surprise, disgust, anger, sadness. His nose scrunches, his eyes tighten. No pleasure whatsoever. No arousal. "Mary Willis, Yolanda Daryl, Tamika Cecit, Rhonda Gomez, Ugne Tarana, and Jessica Kane. Another one, Chichida Harind went missing almost 24 hours ago."

He stares down at them. He's not afraid the way most people would be, but then again, that could be just the military training. He looks angry, mostly. "That's disgusting," he says quietly, with an intensity that interests her.

"It is," Maria says, watching him, sitting down across from her. His eyes go up to her face right away, make eye contact. "They were abducted, bound, and tortured before being mutilated and put right back in their beds. The latest victim doesn't have a lot of time."

Castle looks even angrier, but a silent sort of rage. Not explosive, but burning all the same. 

"The person who did this--there's DNA left behind at each scene," she says. "Sometimes under their fingernails, but usually on their skin. Would you mind providing a sample?"

"Not at all, ma'am," he says, which is surprising. She takes the sample; he opens up his mouth obediently and doesn't leer once. She likes him despite himself. 

As she gives it to one of the local police outside the door to take to the lab, she regroups. Maria comes back in and sits down again. He's more likely a witness now--she's never known a homicidal psychopath to so easily cooperate with a DNA sample or the police without being wildly overconfident or delusional, and Castle doesn't come off that way to her.

"Do you know why we suspect you?" she asks him.

"No, ma'am." Again, genuine and quiet, respectful but not submissive. 

"We're profilers with the FBI," she says. "We look at behaviour rather than primarily physical evidence."

"And I...behave like the scum that did this?" Anger, contempt, disbelief. But not directed at her, not really.

"To some degree. It's possible that it's someone very similar to you, maybe even someone you know. I'm going to describe him, and it's important that you tell us if you think you recognize him. Chichida Harind doesn't have a lot of time left."

He nods sharply. Maria goes on, "Like you, he's white, he's male, he's about your age," Maria says slowly, watching him to see if he'd put it together. "He's got a military background--"

Castle's jaw twitches. She goes to regain his trust rather than make him close ranks. "We say that because the specific method of torture includes electrocution and waterboarding, but it never kills them," she says. "That requires a lot of specialized knowledge or else many prior kills, and we have no reason to think the latter is true."

He visibly opens back up. God, she likes his face, but shoves it down. "He's got a military background, probably special operations of some sort, or else works with an agency like the CIA. He doesn't have children, a partner, or parents he's close to. He's quiet, a loner, possibly enough so that he can't hold down a very social job. He's never been arrested before. He's a sadist, which means he probably makes you or others uncomfortable when he's around young women. Anyone you know sound like that?"

Castle looks contemplative. "Why do you know he's white?"

Ding, ding, ding. "It's mostly statistical probability. All the victims are mixed-race, and most people commit serial crimes within their race, but the overwhelming majority of serial killers are white men," Maria says. "Who are you thinking of?"

"He's not in--he's not like me," Castle says. "Not a Marine, but he's a SEAL. If he did this.." his fists clench in the cuffs. Maria leans in just a little.

"Who is it?"

"David Roanoke," he says, contempt rolling over his face.

"Why do you think so?"

"We were at a bar once," Castle says. "He's one of my..he was one of my squad's brothers. He was there, and there was something wrong with the way he was looking at this girl two tables over, with her parents."

"Alright," Maria says with a sharp nod, and walks out of the room to where Hotch, Reid, Morgan, JJ, Rossi, and Emily all are, phone out. "I have another suspect, a better one. David Roanoke, a Navy SEAL. Garcia, can you run him?"

"Uh, yes, of course I can...he's a Navy SEAL, never been arrested, lives alone, parents have been dead since the age of 16, does a lot of things that are blacked out unless I dig deeper, owns...huh, it's not a basement, but he owns a house not far out from the city with both a barn and a garage that, according to some financial records, was renovated to be soundproofed two years ago. He's been in the States for all six murders, and...and the only thing that's not with the profile is that his mother was Filipino and his dad was an immigrant from Bangladesh."

"So he's also mixed-race, probably outwardly ethnically ambiguous," Maria calculated fast, "And he fits the profile otherwise."

"What makes you think it's not Castle?" Reid asks, genuinely confused.

"This guy is a homicidal psychopath, right," Maria says, pacing a little. "He's killed six women and he tortures them beforehand. He's smart but he's not forensically sophisticated at all. He's a misogynist, he's a loner, he's devolving."

"Yes," Hotch says, watching, listening.

"Castle doesn't fit that," Maria says. "I'm older than the UNSUB's preferred age but I know I'm not clear-cut, and he didn't react at all with the kind of fetishistic reaction the UNSUB would. He says 'ma'am' but not out of fear of women or habit, he's grown up in New York and not the South. He's the one that mentioned Roanoke, said that he looked at a teenage girl wrong in a bar where Castle was with him once. And Castle voluntarily gave a DNA sample even after being told that we've got it."

"It's possible that he's delusional or wants to be caught--" Reid says, and she shakes her head. 

"No, doesn't seem like it to me at all," she says. "I've worked with a lot of delusional, devolving serial killers, and you can see it when they're losing it. Castle..he's clean-shaved, keeps up his hair, showered this morning. He speaks deliberately, hasn't yet gotten overemotional over anything. He's reacting much too calmly."

Hotch looks at her, and then nods. "Okay. Garcia, where's Roanoke now?"

"Uh, he bough a donut and two coffees at a Dunkin thirty minutes ago in Manhatten, sir," Garcia says. "After that...his car's at his home, courtesy of a security camera installed near his property by a utility company two days ago. Someone's been stealing wires."

"Okay. Morgan, Areida, you go and interview him, pretend he's a witness. Reid and Rossi, keep an eye on Castle. If he's our UNSUB, we don't want him to slip through our fingers."

They chime in with their respective 'yes, sir's and 'understood's and leave.

* * *

 

When Maria gets back, Castle is still there. Roanoke's in the station and being charged with the murders as well as the assault of a federal agent, and Chichida Harind is in the hospital, her family having come and police protection on her. Roanoke's brother isn't stateside right now, but he's due to get back that night and they don't want any retaliation.

She gets into the interrogation room and sees Castle playing chess against Reid. Rossi is snarkily commenting on it, and turns to look at her as she gets in.

"They've been going at it for hours," he says melodramatically. "Make it stop."

Maria smiles. "Frank Castle, due to Roanoke's arrest and the evidence found at his home, you're free to go."

"Is she alive?" Castle asks her, looking up with dark eyes. "The girl you said was the latest--Chichida Harind?"

"She's alive," Maria said. "She's been waterboarded repeatedly, but she's alive. She'll have police protection for at least a few weeks until we can be sure Roanoke's brother doesn't retaliate."

Castle's eyes narrow. "I'll talk to him," he says.

She uncuffs his other hand, and escorts him out. "See you another time," she says. "And in the future, make sure you document your whereabouts better."

He smiles at her. "Thank you, ma'am," he says. "Have a good day."

Maria watches him go and can't wait to leave the BAU.

* * *

 

But despite her epiphany, she doesn't. It's horrible, but during a case she can't think about anything other than the hunt, other than  _find him find him find him before more people are dead_ , she can't focus enough to quit, and she's good enough at her job that they can't fire her. Between cases, she's too exhausted to think, crawling into bed and spending more and more weekends lying on the couch trying to distract herself, jumping at tiny noises.

Rossi pulls her aside during another case, a bad one--child abductions in public parks--and tells her that if she needs time off to  _take it_. She nods and doesn't.

Prentiss, one night in a hotel room where they're trying to get some rest so that they can go out the next day and canvass parts of Oakland for a charming, sophisticated collector of middle-aged women, quietly tells her that she seems less and less okay, and that there's no shame in taking a good vacation and getting away from it all. 

Reid plays chess against her and frowns when she loses in the first three moves. Later she finds a book on how to manage stress and work smarter, not harder on her desk, and another on medieval Catholicism. Maria reads neither of them. 

Morgan invites her out to trivia nights at the bar and tries to get her to open up. Maria drags herself to a few but feels hollow, like she's not upset or traumatized or depressed, just being erased into nothingness by the job.

JJ asks her to babysit Henry one weekend, and  _that_ is actually pretty nice. Maria laughs at his absurd little-kid sense of humor, and he's so genuinely affectionate and easygoing that she can enjoy being around him. But it means that she dreads Monday coming back even more than normal, and it starts occurring to her over and over that not only can she not only not do this job anymore, she can't have children while she's doing it, either.

Garcia sends her endless links on relaxation exercises and kittens playing with puppies and documentaries about bizarrely adorable miniature horses, but Maria doesn't reply to any of them. She feels like she's dead at work.

Finally, Hotch calls her into his office one day. "Your job performance hasn't actually declined yet," he says. "But if you don't take some time off, it's probable that it will. I'm asking you to use at least two weeks of your vacation time, if not more."

Maria stares at him. Two weeks. Sure.

She takes the two weeks and spends both of them in bed, the dishes in her kitchen wafting mold spores throughout her apartment. She's run out of underwear by day three, and then stops even getting dressed or changing pajamas. She doesn't shower. She reads a little on her phone, tries to make sense of a few short e-books, but even the paranormal romances she got into in college are too hard to understand. Mostly she does very slow sudokus.

When her phone rings at the end of the two weeks, she doesn't pick up. 

When Garcia emails her that they've got a case, she doesn't reply.

Predictably in hindsight, her team overreacts and ends up kicking open her door, finding her staring blankly at the ceiling. They exchange glances and end up taking a few days off themselves--Rossi brings over home-cooked lasagna and garlic bread, JJ hires someone to clean out her kitchen and fridge, and Hotch files the paperwork for her to go on medical leave for a month. Reid finds a decent, discreet therapist, and Prentiss ends up taking her to her apartment for a couple of days while it's cleaned, letting her play with Sergio. Garcia sends multiple care packages full of light-up pens and glitter eyeshadow and blu-rays and Beanie Babies and spa products. She takes Maria out to a Batman movie re-showing that is actually pretty funny.

Maria still feels blank. But she gets enough energy back to start jumping at noises again, and at the first appointment with the therapist she manages to say, "I need to quit my job and move to New York."

Her therapist looks at her. "Why New York?" 

All Maria can think of is how New York lets people vanish, and how much she wants to. "I need to quit my job and move."

Her therapist is unexpectedly helpful. Garcia manages to get her a severance package that helps a lot as she sells her apartment and moves, and Hotch shakes her hand as she walks out of the BAU for the last blessed time.

* * *

 

It's two years into New York life before they meet again. Frank is apparently still a Marine, on temporary leave because of something or other, and Maria's working on getting a new specialty in psychology--bereavement. She's seen a lot of grief be caused in her life; she'd like to help people live with it.

She asks him out for coffee.

"Hi," she says as he sits down. He gets it straight black and in large quantities.

"Another piece of human shit in town?"

Maria shrugs. "I don't know. I quit the FBI."

Castle--no, Frank--watches her. "Why?"

"I stopped being able to do anything," she says. "Seeing those women, those kids, those people be killed in horrible ways every fucking week, over and over again, just this endless parade of bodies.." she stares into her cup. "It fucks with you. And now I can do things again." Like have a routine, talk to a stranger without a distant terror of them being another killer, take cabs like a normal person. 

Frank nods. "Sounds like it would."

She gazes at him.

"You were a profiler," he says. "What do you see in me?"

Maria smirks at him a little. "I could see that you respected me right away," she says. "Not faked, and not because you didn't want to deal with social backlash."

He snorts. "I don't give a fuck what most people think."

"Yeah, I can see that too. You're a loner, but you're not lacking social skills when you really try," she says. "Highly competent, reliable, steady. You're decisive and not domineering, but not submissive to most people either. Able to function well in crisis situations--very few people take being arrested for multiple murders like you did. Very intelligent--not many people can play chess against Reid. The Marines was a great career choice."

He smiles lopsidedly at her, and she feels something she hasn't felt since she started regularly interviewing serial killers: a little spark, a tiny pulse of want. His nose has been broken twice more since she's last seen him and  _goddamn_ , she wants him.

"What about me?" she says and sips her coffee.

"You're smart," he says, "But you also aren't afraid of dangerous people. You thought I'd killed six people and you weren't even a little bit scared of me. But you could read people like books."

She smiles at him and there's an awkward pause.

"You walked away from the FBI because you were tired of being around killers," he says.

"That's one way to put it." This is a heavy first date, but Maria can tell he's an early-commitment kinda guy, all or nothing.

"You do realize I've killed people before?"

"So have I," Maria says flatly. She has, and that's the one part of her job she's never had a nightmare about. Everything else, including paperwork, she has. "Looked people in the face and shot them."

Frank looks at her. "I'm a bad choice if you're looking to avoid monsters."

Maria snorts. She thinks of monsters she's known--ennucleators, rapists, collectors, hunters, psychopaths. Family annihilators. Long-term abductors. "You're not a monster. You're a marshmellow."

He blinks. "What?"

She laughs at his face, and says, teasingly this time, "You are a  _marshmellow_."

"Is that so?" he says, and he has a look on his face like he wants to tease back, wants to  _dance_.

Maria's never been so excited.


	3. Chapter 3

After Frank comes back from the last of his specialist training for the moment, something is different.

Maria's wondered what Frank is hiding from her for a long time. She's known it's a secret since they started seriously dating, and she knows he's not ready to tell her. He's promised it's not that he killed or raped anyone, doesn't have secret children or was involved in a mafia or a gang, hasn't been having an affair or anything. He's not secretly rich or European. He's not an illegal immigrant. He might be bisexual but again, no affair, no secret HIV infection, no nothing.

He loves her and he's never hurt her and she's never really thought he would and he  _loves her_ and she knows she loves him too.

So she's marrying him anyway, and tonight, she comes out of the shower and sees him sitting on the bed.

"Maria," he says quietly. "I..I'm gonna tell you."

She sits down right away, still in her towel. "Tell me," she says. "Whatever it is, please tell me. I love you."

He swallows, doesn't look at her. "It's." 

She waits, swallowing a scream. She has to be patient.

"You know your--the friend you introduced me to, the one called--Jessica?"

She blinks and searches frantically. Jessica used to do cocaine, Jessica is an artist, Jessica has fibromyalgia, Jessica is transgender--shit. That's it. Maria puts the pieces together. 

Oh.  _Oh._ Maria can feel herself almost collapse in relief. "Oh, thank god," she says, a little hoarse. "Oh fuck, oh, that's it, honey? That's all?"

He looks her in disbelief. "What do you mean,  _that's all_? I thought--"

"I don't care," she bursts out. "Frank--I thought--I, maybe your parents were in that Nazi organization or something, or maybe you went to jail once under a different name, but--that's all? You're a woman? Frank, that's nothing, that's--oh my god, that's nothing to worry about," she says, and starts laughing. "I had, I was so worried, I was gonna marry you anyway but I didn't want-- _Frank_ ," she says, and leans in to kiss him--her. Her.  _Her, her her_ , her girlfriend, her Frank. 

"Thank you for being honest with me," she says softly, leaning and kissing her again. "Thank you for letting me marry with an informed choice. And before you say anything stupid, it's a still a yes, you idiot."

She looks at her, and then they have to talk logistics.

* * *

 

Frank does not want to be Jessica. Frank doesn't want to change names, or have any kind of transition at all until she's done with the Marines, until after her last deployment. Maria agrees that it's a smart strategy at a high personal cost, but that's Frank for you. 

It's hard, training herself to talk about her wife like she's not who she is in public or to anyone else, but Maria is determined. Frank and her make plans, with dates and timelines and when to tell the children and when to do transitioning and when to tell Maria's family, if ever. They settle on only telling the children after the last deployment as Frank jumps into as fast a physical transition as she wants and can feasibly have. They factor in the likely denial of vet benefits into their plans for the future--well, Maria does, she's the accountant, she's the one planning the long-term financials--and they factor in necessary healthcare, transition costs, spousal benefits.

In the meantime, life happens. 

Maria can see Frank get more and more strained at the seams--not with the secret, Frank is really not the type to share secrets with other people in the first place, but with the sheer want. And being around Jessica herself is the most difficult for her, so Maria gracefully arranges things so Frank and Jessica are never around each other for more than a minute at the most, if that. 

Frank looks at Maria so often with--not just adoration like she used to before the secret came out, not just love or affection or want or exasperation, but with a certain humility. Maria asks about it one day when they're lying in bed, curled up together.

"I'm not even honest about it," Frank tells her bluntly. "I'm not like those people in your family, those--the one that said fuck it. And you're fine with it."

Maria shrugs. "You were already in the Marines, what were you gonna do?"

"I could have done something before then."

"And throw away your chance at the job you always wanted?" Maria asks incredulously.

Frank sighs against her.

"I'm not saying it was the right or the wrong choice," she says. "But you don't have to beat yourself up about it. I love you, and you were honest with me, and that's what matters."

"I hate lying to the kids." 

"I don't like it either, but they don't know how to keep secrets," she says. "They'll get over it."

Frank nods against her, and then kisses her neck, and Maria laughs as they go for another round.

* * *

 

It's after the last deployment that they can finally move to the next stage of the plan.

Frank takes a week to get her shit together, and the firm that Maria works with has fantastic spousal healthcare, so they start quickly. Frank's over thirty now, and the endocrinologist warns her that with her physique she won't exactly end up curvy like Maria.

Neither of them care. Frank ends up looking like a lumberjack lesbian, and she can still hold Maria up like a ragdoll, and she still looks like  _her_. A petite or hourglass Frank would just be wrong.

The kids are actually pretty easy to talk to. Lisa takes the advice with good grace, hugging Frank and patting her before announcing that two mothers were obviously better because everybody knew girls were the best, and then she goes back to her ice-cream sundae.

Frank Jr is more confused--he's  _three_ , the concept of gender is kind of fuzzy for him--but he does notice that Frank gets quietly happier and happier as she looks more and more like herself, and she notices that Frank smells different, and after her top surgery he's apparently managed to grasp the concept enough to get her a 'Get Well Soon, Mom!' card with Maria's help.

Frank chokes up when she sees it. 

Maria's family reacts badly, just like she predicted. They make noises about lying and faithfulness and act, generally, like Frank has somehow been betraying them by being in their house without showing them her biggest weakness. Maria fends them off and hangs up as often as it takes to train them to stop being relentless dickheads. 

The worst is how Frank's military buddies--the few of them that there were--are suddenly silent and distant. Maria can tell it hurts her, but Frank takes a few deep breaths and then goes back to taking care of the kids so Maria can relax more. 

And then they decide, one day, to go to Central Park to celebrate Frank's name change going through--she's now Francesca Castle.


End file.
